Johan Ghazali Tells Rustam Yunusov He Will Beat Him Again

Johan "Jojo" Ghazali has accepted a call-out from unbeaten Russian Rustam "Tomahawk" Yunusov, telling him he is ready for the fight and expects to win it the same way he did their last meeting.

The challenge came earlier in October, after Yunusov took a unanimous decision over Thai veteran Suriyanlek Por Yenying in the main event of The Inner Circle 34 at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok. That result moved him to 18-0 overall and 9-0 in ONE Championship, and put him one step closer to a US$100,000 main roster contract.

Once the bout was over, the fighter from One Chance and Tomahawk Kamilov Team turned his attention to Ghazali, though not in flattering terms.

"What I can say about Johan – I cannot say anything, because I don't want to fight with actors. I fight with fighters. Johan has to film Malaysian films."

The 19-year-old Malaysian-American, who trains at Rentap Muaythai Gym and Superbon Training Camp, chose to take the remark as praise.

"Thank you very much. Thank you so much [for the compliment]. It's not easy to look like me. It's not easy to be as rich as me. It's not easy to be as influential as me. So I take it as a compliment."

He then made his position on the matchup plain: "Rustam, you've been calling for this fight for a while. If the fans want to see it, I have no problem. Let's do it, and I'll beat you again like the last time I did. And then, I'll make a movie about it."

Three fights as teenagers

The two, both 19, already know each other from the IFMA World Youth Muay Thai Championships, where they met three times as young teenagers. Yunusov won the first two bouts. Ghazali took the third, at the 2022 edition of the tournament.

"The first fight took place when we were 38 kg, I think. We were very small. The second one was at 57 kg, and the third one was at 60 kg. I won the last one," Ghazali recalled.

His latest outing came at The Inner Circle 35 on Friday, October 16, where he avenged an earlier loss to Colombian-American Diego Paez in a flyweight Muay Thai rematch. The win took his record to 28-11.

Ghazali credited Yunusov's skills but questioned the level of the opposition behind his streak: "He's a good fighter. He's a southpaw, so it's a bit tricky to fight him. But, I mean, he hasn't been fighting the same caliber of opponents that I've been fighting. So, nine-win streak or not, for me it doesn't really make a big difference because of the people he's been fighting."

Source: ONE Championship